Women’s basketball drops two away games

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Women’s basketball drops two away games

The Hillsdale College women’s basketball team began their conference schedule with two losses this past week against Ashland University and Lake Erie College.

The Chargers traveled to face the Ashland Eagles on Dec. 1, where they fell 77-57. Senior captain and guard Chelsea Harrison led the Charger effort with 21 points and sophomore center Angela Bisaro scored 13.

On Dec. 3, the undefeated Lake Erie Storm topped the Chargers 68-64. In a close battle in Painesville, Ohio, captain Katie Bildner was the high scorer for Hillsdale, dropping 15 points, while sophomores Angela Bisaro and Marissa DeMott each added 13.

The Chargers do not attribute their losses to being on the road. A slow start may actually be cited as one of the common denominators between the two losses. In both games, Hillsdale fell behind from the start and were never able to establish leads for the remainder of regulation.

“It’s very important to take the lead early in the game. We always talk about winning the first five minutes of each period, and we didn’t do that this past weekend,” Harrison said. “We waited until late in the game to start working and playing well and we just can’t do that.”

Ashland held an 11-point lead going into halftime as Hillsdale struggled to run an effective offense. Hillsdale tied the game only twice in the first half, due in large part to Ashland’s complete domination of the paint.

The Eagles outscored the Chargers 18-8 in the key during the first half. The Chargers were able to make some adjustments at halftime and closed the gap to three points twice before the Eagles ran away with the lead for good.

“After halftime, we started to get excited and show more energy,” Bildner said. “We started to play together and our defense stepped it up. However, once they scored again and our shots weren’t falling, we didn’t keep up our momentum.

“We started rushing things and didn’t play together anymore. That’s when they pulled way.”

Hillsdale took a more focused mindset into their match-up with Lake Erie, but it wasn’t enough to secure a victory.

Despite a hard-fought run at the end of the game, the Chargers could never get comfortable against a Lake Erie team who received a lot of help from their bench.

While turnovers plagued the Charger effort, the Storm committed just as many (23) during the game. Hillsdale even out-rebounded Lake Erie, but the Storm got to the free-throw line more than Hillsdale and made their opportunities count, earning 19 of their 68 points from the line.

“The difference between us and Lake Erie was that Lake Erie executed and took advantage of our turnovers, while when we turned it over, we didn’t take advantage,” Harrison said.

The Chargers look to improve upon last week’s losses tonight against the University of Findlay in their first home game. The women’s other game this week, also at home, will be on Saturday against Lake Superior State University.